Turin Shroud and the Templars

The Grail stories confirm what Melkin informs us; that the body of Jesus is in Avalon, but it is the Templars role in the removal of the Turin Shroud that explains it lack of provenance or historical footprint.
On October 12th 1307, three Templar treasure ships were moored in La Rochelle harbour, the next day they had vanished. Most of the mystique concerning the Templars today stem from the fact that they occupied the Temple Mount in Jerusalem and are rumoured to have retrieved from it, ‘The Ark of the Covenant’ and other Temple treasures such as the Menorah.

The Holy Grail quickly became associated with the Templars, even in the twelfth century, Evalak’s shield becoming the Templar emblem as the red cross. One of the first Grail romances, ‘Le Conte du Graal’, was written around 1180 by Chrétien de Troyes. Perhaps twenty years later Parzival, Wolfram von Eschenbach's version of the tale, refers to knights called ‘Templeisen’ or in the French ‘Les Templiere’ who were guarding the Grail Kingdom. It becomes clearer that the Templars or a secretive hierarchy embodied within the order, possessed arcane knowledge, and were responsible for emanating the Grail stories and the Templars with connections such as Eleanor of Aqitaine becoming interwoven in the romances as a form of flattery by the troubadours as the romances proliferated.

The relics of the Templars and what others thought were their religious beliefs played a large part in their downfall, but the main reason for their demise was that other institutions were after their wealth and envious of their power. At the Templar inquisition, instigated by the King of France, they were accused of heresy, sodomy and worshipping bearded heads, Baphomet and other such strange practices, which may have been invented by their accusers to give weight to charges of heresy. The Templars were in possession of certain relics from the Temple in Jerusalem which seem to have been re-discovered at the second crusade because of information supplied by Joseph which ended up with Eleanor of Aquitaine. The head of John the Baptist could have been preserved from King Herod’s days and also kept secreted beneath the Temple. Herod’s daughter Herodias had danced for his guests and demanded John’s head. This could have been retrieved and secreted in the Temple by those who realised John’s role in the Divine plan, (a plan which had been related by the prophets). John’s head would have been regarded as sacred and therefore preserved for veneration and then subsequently re-found in the same cache as the Temple treasure.

The Templars main claim to a sacred religious relic was to possess a piece of the original cross from Cavalry but as we have seen already, these were so prolific that a piece existed in Montacute. In all the considerable documentation involving the trials of the Templars, nothing has been found concerning the Grail, so even though the stories were propagated by the Templar organisation, the concept of the Grail, as something that Joseph had brought to Britain was in the public domain and was slowly shaped into an object by association with Melkin’s misunderstood description.

It seems highly likely that the likes of Walter Map and Chrétien de Troyes, and other ‘trouvere’ before them, were shown an ancient text written in Latin and possibly a French copy might have been made of the whole Grail book but maybe only extracts were compiled in French as intonated by Helinand. Either way, it would certainly account for the gross misunderstanding of the essence of the Grail if the initial translator/s made substantial errors. The troubadours were either asked or paid to write stories (extracted and compiled according to the interests of the original troubadours) , that alluded to historical fact in allegorical prose; this being initially instigated it would seem, at Eleanor’s or her father’s court. With this gradual proliferation, the characters, some, as we have seen from the crusade period (due to court flattery), got mixed in with early accounts from a Cornish royal line that traced its heritage back to Joseph and Jesus.
Even the objects within the Grail stories are so interrelated and undergo transformations that it is hard to establish what was in Melkin’s book.

Joseph, Nicodemus and Vespasian and Grail keeper knights were mixed together with Arthur from the Saxon period. People who historically lived hundreds of years apart are intertwined in tales with objects from the crucifixion. The Grail itself, objectivised from this text, refers directly to the gradual degrees, the ‘Graal’ of the enlightenment of man and this is alluded to as being part of the quest. Jesus’ role in these events plays a major part in the enlightenment of man and the story involving his relics being brought by Joseph to England has resulted in varying perspectives and degrees of allegory. The different Grail writers alluded to a greater or lesser degree, certain passages or sections taken from Melkin’s original book of the Grail.

This is as we have seen in regard to Camelot, the name which was derived from a Hebrew pilgrimage, eventually transposing itself into a beautiful city. We know that Tintagel was Arthur’s base in Cornwall and there is no mythical city that has disappeared since the six hundreds. We can see the same with ‘Excalibur’derived from the Aramaic ‘quali’ meaning ‘forged’ (from which we derive the modern word ‘calibre’), rendering ‘forged long ago’, being interchangeable as Solomon’s sword (the implement threatened on the disputed baby), iconized as judgement. This judgement was a part of the original story related by Melkin in the book of the Grail regarding the ‘gradual’enlightenment of man. Coincidentally Geoffrey of Monmouth’s ‘Historia’ also states that Avalon is where Arthur’s sword Caliburn (Excalibur) was ‘forged’.

Briefly, we should look at an alliterative poem said to be written about A.D. 1330-50 regarding Joseph which contains much of what the Grail book alluded to, but which seems to have been passed over in some part by other Grail writers who concentrated upon Arthurian knightly escapades, rather than, for us, the most important facts about what it was, that Joseph actually brought with him. Although it is not part of the endeavour to investigate the various perspectives which constitute the Grail romances, this particular romance, which can be related to other similar source material such as the ‘The Lyfe of Joseph’ or ‘De Sancto Joseph Abarimathia’, specifically derived from or seemingly condensed, the same early source as Mr Furnivalls‘Seynt Graal’, a prose version from a manuscript in the British Museum. This will show us how Melkin was able to speak of his ‘double folded grave cloth’, as described in his prophecy and the provenance and method of fabrication of the Turin Shroud.

This ‘Alliterative poem’ which seems to have a very early source from its lack of embellishment, is from a unique copy in the Vernon Manuscript at Oxford and by its content, shows its content is of a much older date than is supposed by experts and it must have been taken from a much earlier version. The subject of the story portrays the adventures of Joseph of Arimathea at the court of Evalak, king of Sarras, with the episode of king Evalak's shield in part, included. The story of Evalak’s shield is related to Galahad by ‘the White Knight’, in the Romance of the ‘Quest of the Saint Graal’,and from there it was inserted by Malory in his ‘Morte d’Arthur’. The object of the poet was to make known and translate much of the legend of Joseph which had come from the Book of the Grail and we can only guess at what the original French extract might have selected to omit from the original Grail book. This poem provides evidence of a very early source because of its non-corruption of essential information that was initially related by the original Grail book. A break down of the story follows closely that which we have already quoted from John of Glastonbury and relates that:

After Jesus’s entombment, Joseph of Arimathea was seized by the Jews, and imprisoned in a dungeon, without a window, where he remained for forty-two years, till released by Vespasian. This seems unlikely if Jesus was approximately 35 when he died and Joseph, being his uncle(or Father), would have been about 25 years older. This would have made Joseph approximately 102 years old before his arrival in Britain. This as we will show shortly, is relating information about the essence of the grades or degrees of the Graal which the author of the poem is including as part of the story, which also correlates with the prophet Daniel’s three and a half years. The forty two years have been extrapolated from the Latin Grail text which is alluding allegorically to the forty two months (and may indeed have had the word ‘months’) as mentioned in the book of Revelation, which also correlates with the three and a half days mentioned in Revelation and as seen in Daniel 9:27 ‘And he will make a firm covenant with the many for one week, but in the middle of the week……giving the same time period of the Three and a half days’, but this will be explained when we deal with ‘Biblical Time’.

After his release, Joseph then tells Vespasian that the time of his imprisonment seemed but three days, which also confirms that the writer is innocently divulging occult information that was in the original text but has omitted the half day because of not understanding its significance. The text then goes on to say that Joseph, having just been baptized himself, then proceeds to baptize Vespasian and fifty others, after which Vespasian wreaks vengeance on the Jews who had imprisoned Joseph.

In obedience to a divine voice, Joseph, with his wife, his son Josephes and a company of fifty people, (possibly the same as Rabanus’s group before disembarking the women in France), left Jerusalem, and arrived at Sarras, taking with him the Holy Graal, containing Christ's blood which is carried inside an ark or box. It is the opinion of the author that the original exposed that Joseph left with his son(meaning Jesus) and in the transcription process ‘Josephes’ became the son of Joseph. In other Grail stories the group are said to arrive on Josaphes shirt which is surely the inclusion of a mistranslation of the original word meaning cloth, vestment, or covering in reference to the doubled over grave cloth or ‘duo fassula’. Let us assume for the moment, that Sarras is the Belerion of Pytheas and Belerion is named after the God Bel by Zarah’s offspring. Sarras where Zara’s offspring migrated to, has an anciently renowned Island within its confines where the thing called the Grail is kept. This Island in Sarras, in translation gets confused by the original French Grail writer; and is termed ’The Island of Sarras’ because most certainly Melkin knew that the Grail remained on an Island.

The Island of Sarras may, alternatively have been named and noted by Melkin because of its connection with Zara or Zerah in his Latin book of the Grail which turned up in France. However the Grail writer Robert de Boron thought that the Island of Sarras is in Egypt. This would appear to have come about by the common misconception of association with Saracens being synomymous with Arabs in the east. The Saracens were the ancient Jews of Cornwall. Robert de Boron, however, says the final destination of the Grail is 'En la terre vers Occident , Ki est sauvage durement , En vaus d'Avaron' – ‘in the land to the West, which is extremely wild, in the Vales of Avaron’. There is only one place in the West which is full of vales and that is Devon thus named because of the vales. Where wilder than Dartmoor from which the ‘Avon’ river leads downstream to the Isle of Avalon or ‘Avaron’ where there actually was a religious house known as ‘St Michael by the Sea’. Burgh Island to this day is still rumoured (long before the St. Michael Chapel was built) to have had a monastery at one time on it.

Robert, however does not say that Joseph is to be found in the same place as the Grail. In the Perlesvaus, also known as Li Hauz Livres du Graal or The High History of the Holy Grail (possibly re-mastered by Henry of Blois, Master Blehis), are the echoes of the original script of the book of the Grail written by Melkin. Perlesvaus seems to be a continuation of Chrétien de Troyes unfinished ‘Story of the Grail’ or ‘Perceval’ which co-incidentally is literally translated as‘through the vales’. As we shall get to in the last chapter ……… whether or not Melkin left a Latin original in Britain and wrote the book of the Grail in France is full of contention especially regarding the witness of Helinand. Especially when we hear regarding the perlesvaus:

‘The author of the High Book of the Grail even claims that his text is copied from a Latin manuscript which was found in the Isle of Avalon in a house of holy religion which sits at the head of hazardous tides where King Arthur and Queen Guenievre lie where according to the witnesses of good and religious men that are there, that have the whole story thereof, true from the beginning even to the end.'

We do have a line of Kings of the most important biblical heritage who have a name that a French translator or early troubadour would pronounce as ‘sarra’ and later be written as Sarras. However, the mention of Egypt (or the coming out of it) is purely (as we shall see), one of the degrees to spiritual enlightenment foretold by the Biblical prophets along with ‘spiritual Babylon’, where coincidentally Tholomer came from. The complete mix-up of information by the Grail writers is astounding when Melkin relating in spiritual terms about Tholomer, (who is synonymous with Ptolemy king of the Egyptians), then becomes King of Babylon. But as we shall cover in detail later both the ‘coming out of Eygypt’ and ‘returning from Babylon’ are spiritual stages to pass through as Grades to enlightenment. The reference to these spiritual stages in a man’s life (originally referred to in the Latin Grail book) have entered the story as extraneous detail taken out of context from the original Grail book.

However this unravels the appearance of an Island from French sources, having the name Zara (translating as Sarras), which coincidentally just happens to be where the Grail is, just the same as it is said to be in the Island of Avalon with Joseph. So this Island mentioned by Robert de Boron as having Joseph's family bringing the Grail to it, the ‘vaus d'Avaron’, the valleys of Avaron in the west (Devon being the county of Vales), may have been named as ‘Avalon’ also in the first translation from Melkin’s Grail book as well as the island belonging to Evalak king of the Saracens.

The concentration on certain details by the early Grail writers was purely an individual choice. Some writers, as in the‘Alliterative poem’ we are looking at, concentrated on his personal interest of the story concerning Joseph so he leaves out the Arthur material (also in the grail book) covering a later historical period. Others intermingled source material without regard to chronology just to weave the tale while others might choose to pick just one word, as we have seen with Camelot and embellish that word until its origins were unrecognisable.

The Grail writers did not understand that Melkin had used biblical metaphorical language as part of the Grail material which in essnce recounts the spiritual stages of man. This can be readily confirmed by reading the biblical Prophets where one can transliterate from an historical into an individual context. Without this understanding of the prophets, for the most part if read as purely historical (without transliteration into the spiritual meaning) they are fairly unintelligible appearing as random sections. This is the reason we have the inclusion of the kings of Egypt and Babylon in the Grail stories. After all the Grail writer is giving an account of Joseph’s arrival in Britain so what at all has this to do with Babylon or even Egypt as he sailed to Marseille as a first port of call. This reference to Egypt and Babylon can only be understood as a reference to the spiritual grades as set out as passages of rite to be passed through, and this can only be grasped by a good understanding of the body of material known as the Prophets. Unfortunately, biblical commentaries are still trying to rationalise this body of material from a purely historical perspective. So the mention of Eygypt and Babylon confirms their inclusion purely as stages applicable to the heightening of man’s Consciousness. This was before the Grail writers created a complete ‘salad’ of what was a coherent account that could have been substantiated by an understanding of the Biblical Prophets.

Joseph tried to convert Evalak, the king of Sarras, whose kingdom was as (we covered earlier) synonymous with the Kingdom of Belerion of Pytheas and the Dumnonia of King Arthur which became Devon and Cornwall. Joseph we are told after his arrival declared the doctrine of the Trinity to the king. This doctrine was the essence of the occult information which Joseph had brought with him and related to the three spiritual stages or progressions of Mankind toward enlightenment; the ‘coming out of Egypt’, the‘return from Babylon’ and the ‘Period of peace’ which were continually reiterated from every perspective by the biblical prophets. The king of Sarras provided for the wants of Joseph's company, but has his doubts about the truth of the doctrine. The following night, the king was converted by two visions.

In the first he saw three stems growing from one trunk and appearing to coalesce into one perhaps emblematic of the Trinity but could also be construed as the coalescing of the three Abrahamic Religions as a vision of the future, as this is (in effect) the outcome of finding the Grail (if we consider the impact it will have at the tombs discovery).
In the second vision the King saw a child pass through a solid wall without any injury to the wall and the Grail writer interjected that it was an emblem of Christ's spotless Incarnation. However what is more likely is that it was part of the occult account of spiritual progression through the ‘degrees’ without injury to the soul. The child being synonymous with man giving birth i.e the son of man derived from the fusion of soul and spirit, the birth of Gnosis. This is a situation where complex material is being related by Melkin that is being reiterated by the Troubadour completely out of context.
Josaphes, the son of Joseph, also saw a vision when he peered into the Grail-Ark. He beheld Christ upon the cross and five angels with the instruments of the Passion; with eleven more angels appearing afterwards, whilst Christ seemed to descend from the cross, and to stand beside an altar, upon the one end of which were the Lance and Three Nails, and upon the other the Dish with the Blood (the Holy Grail).

This is where the account gets interesting if we understand that the French writer was constructing a plot from Melkin’s elusive or incomprehensible occult information, while remembering that Melkin’s account is constructed from an eye witness account.
Let us assume that the Grail ark or box as it was described was in fact a coffin type container that contained the corpse of Jesus wrapped in the grave cloth which was submerged in Cedar oil. This oil was possibly mixed with other essential oils such as Juniper. The reason we are even considering this is that Melkin says Abbadare(Jesus) is in the same tomb as Joseph of Arimathea. This is not too far to stretch considering Jesus connection to the Grail and the Grail in every account holds or contains something related to him. In the sealed coffin was the lance, three nails and possibly an unlikely ‘sealed chalice’ and more likely a Eucharistic cup. This would be the five items enumerated, not as the story relates, that there were five angels, while maybe the number eleven would be a reference to his disciples woven into the story.

The Whangers who have carried out many experiments on flower imprints on the Turin Shroud, discovered faint images of other objects on the shroud, including a nail, a hammer, a broom (probably mistaken for the spear, a piece of rope and a round wreath of thorns, the marks of which can be seen on Jesus’ forehead (on the shroud image), a reed, and a sponge. The reed and the sponge are witnessed by Mark 15:36 ‘One man ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a reed, and offered it to Jesus to drink’. It is also noted that in the Elucidation of the High history of the Grail that we came across earlier, the spear was kept with the body, obviously not mentioned by the Gospel accounts. The evidence found by the Whangers that the spear remained with the body lends credence to an eyewitness account of the contents of the Grail Ark, if substituted for the words Holy Sepulchre. ’but rather honoured the body the most he might, rather laid it along in the Holy Sepulchre and kept safe the lance whereof he was smitten in the side’. (THE HIGH HISTORY OF THE HOLY GRAAL).

The oil with which Josaphes was consecrated was kept in the Grail-ark, and afterwards the poem says that it was used at the consecration of all the kings of Britain down to Uther-pendragon. This same Ark which Joseph and Josephes are said to ‘retreat to and Pray over’ on several occasions in the poem and in which “was seen the body of Christ”, even being described as ‘just as he was at the time of his entombment’. The original burial shroud (spoken of in all four Gospels) from Jerusalem was wrapped over Jesus in this oil soaked Grail Ark and his body was said in this alliterative poem to be wrapped in ‘a clothe called Sendony’, which one would assume is a corruption in the old French for Cedar, ‘cedre’ Pliny has ‘Cedrus anointed with the juice or oil of a cedar tree and so preserves from rotteness’. Coincidentally the word ‘sindon’ from the Greek σινδών is precisely the word chosen in the Gospel of Mark to describe the burial cloth of Jesus and today the term ‘sindonology’ is used to refer to the formal study of the Shroud. In Fact the The Orvieto Worldwide Conference labelled "Sindone 2000", ‘discussions about the Shroud’ are referring to the same bit of cloth mentioned in the Grail story brought to England by Joseph of Arimathaea, but until now it has not been connected to the cloth that was attested to by Melkin as seen at Jesus’ tomb at Avalon.

Let us take a short digression here to try to correlate all this extraneous information. Cedar oil is difficult to extract and some Egyptologists have argued that Pliny was mistaken when he wrote, in the 1st century AD, about "cedar juice" being employed as an embalming method by Egyptians. Recent discoveries support the writings of Pliny the Elder (AD23-79), when he described the method of how the precious oil was extracted by putting cedar wood in a chamber heated from outside.This can simply be understood as distillation. “The first liquid that exudes flows like water down a pipe; in Syria this is called ‘cedar-juice’, and it is so strong that in Egypt it is used for embalming the bodies of the dead".

Herodotus, five centuries earlier, had also written a similar description of a liquid cedar for preserving flesh. Recently at Germany's Tuebingen University they carried out tests separating embalming material by ‘gas chromatography’, found near a 3500-year-old mummy called ‘Saankh-kare’,unearthed at a site in Deir al-Behari in Egypt. Among these chemicals were sequiterpenoids and guaiacols which are organic compounds found in tar and oil from conifers such as cedar. These compounds constitute a colourless aromatic oil and will be found(at the next scientific examination) to exist among the poly-saccharides found in the threads of the Turin Shroud. Scientists tend to confirm a theory when they have a theory with which to match their data and it has long been known that Cedar oil was used as an embalming fluid but no-one thought that the body of Jesus was submerged in oil and therefore always thought of the shroud (if it were genuine) as being formed in a dry environment. One can see the waviness of the suspended cloth in computer imaging, but the scientific examiners were mainly steered in the context of how they reviewed their results by the Gospel account of a dry burial.

The Egyptians would have rubbed the precious cedar resin on the body and into the body cavities as part of the embalming process to act as an insecticide and antimicrobial in a dry burial. Joseph however was wealthy and could obtain enough of this very expensive oil to submerge the body of Jesus. The cedar oil spoken of by Herodotus and Pliny is called ‘Cedri Succus’, Cedrium surely the root of the corruption in the name of the cloth to Sendony in the alliterative poem.
The potent essential oils found in the many unguents used in the mummification process contained myrrh, attar of roses, cedar and sandalwood and were effective anti-aerobic bacterial agents, and are mostly responsible for the preserved state of the mummies around today.
Many Egyptologists thought the key ingredient in embalming was juniper oil, but recently with improved scientific analysis it has been proved to be, cedar oil instead. The remarkable properties of cedar wood to resist decay, was valued by the Egyptians. They even used it to build their temples, chests, coffins, idols and boats, in addition using the precious cedar oil in embalming and numerous cosmetic preparations.

Solomon's temple was even built entirely of Lebanese cedar from the Lebanese cedar forests but alas, they were cut and eventually depleted because of the demand for their wood. It should not be forgotten that Joseph would have been well acquainted with this oil, travelling from Tyre and Sidon in Lebanon on his mercantile trips to Britain.
Getting back to our Alliterative poem, the story then continues that Christ ordains Joseph a bishop, and bids him go to Evalak's palace. The kings chamberlain who was appointed by King Evalak to dispute with Joseph, was miraculously struck dumb, whilst at the same time his eyes flew out of his head. This part of the poem seeming to relate that, at Evalak’s disbelief at the new and foreign religious account, he then employed an orator or sophist to counteract the Gnostic revelation brought by Joseph and while in debate, the orator was struck blind and dumb.

Evalak then repaired to a temple of idols, hoping to secure the chamberlain's recovery, but the idols were powerless. Soon after, a messenger arrived to tell Evalak that his land has been invaded by Tholomer, king of Babylon, whereupon Evalak prepares for war. This section in particular is relating like the prophets had done, the connection between disbelief and denial and the invasion of the Babylonian army upon Jerusalem. This again will become clear when we cover the subject of Time and the prophets.
Before he set out, Joseph and Josaphes have a private audience with Evalak, wherein Joseph tells the king that he is acquainted with all his previous history. (This again is the book of the Grail recounting that Joseph told the descendants of Judah in Sarras of their historical connection to the Davidic line). After this, Josaphe gave Evalak a shield with a red cross upon it, telling him to pray to Christ in the hour of peril. The essence of this passage being that Jesus becomes (or is synonymous with) the eventual shield, as explained in the Grail book as the third ‘degree’ of Gnosis.

In the first encounter, Tholomer's men were successful, but lost their tents. Evalak then collected more men, and was joined by his wife's brother, Seraphe, with five hundred men. This last passage and the following section is directly bound up with the occult meaning of the Grail as Man’s spiritual progression and attainment in Biblical Time which, if elucidated here, will cause further digression but briefly; the five hundred years (men) is an interpolation representative from the Jews return from Babylon to the coming of Jesus.
In the next battle, King Evalak and Duke Seraphe performed wonders, but at last Seraphe was wounded sorely, and Evalak made prisoner. As Evalak was being led to death, he remembered Josaphe's advice; he uncovers the shield with the red cross, and prays to Christ. An angel came to the rescue, in the outward form of a ‘White Knight’, who slayed Tholomer, healed Seraphe, mounted Evalak upon Tholomer's horse, and helps him to achieve a complete victory; after which he vanished. This is again relating occult information regarding the degrees to peace defeating the Babylonians through belief in Jesus (the shield) until the individual in his spiritual endeavour inherits the king of Babylon’s horse (the power of the king).

The Sceptic will be faltering here, but this account is the nearest we will get to what Melkin was relating as an account of the divine plan and this will become clearer as we progress.
If we consider that Joseph, after his initiation had understood this story of the Divine plan set in ‘Time’, then recorded this, with different references in a volume that must have been in a mixture of Latin, Aramaic and Hebrew. Then Melkin, transcribing all this occult or Gnostic information in addition to the historical Arthurian and genealogical material, conglomerates this evidence into the Latin Book of the Grail. From this, by various means, we arrive at our French sources, effectively making the very early sources third hand accounts at best, which underwent at least two translations which covered a change in language over a period of a thousand years. It is no wonder that the account has come down to us in a garbled and corrupted form.
Meanwhile, Joseph had an interview with Evalak's queen, who was at heart a Christian, and whose early history was also related. This again is riddled with gnostic meaning concerning the relationship of Christianity to the Grail account of Zerah.
Evalak returned home, and was baptized, having been named Mordreins (back from the dead). Seraphe was also baptized, with the name of Naciens (reborn). Joseph further baptized five thousand of Evalak's subjects, and abided at Sarras, meanwhile Josaphes and Naciens set out upon a missionary journey whilst the Holy Grail was left at Sarras- (the island of Avalon) in the charge of two of Joseph's company. Again it is not by accident that this entire account concerning Joseph has happened in the five thousandth year of the seven thousand total of Biblical Time, showing again the poems and the original Grail book’s occult relationship to what the prophets relate in Biblical time.
The poem ceased here, with a brief reference to the subsequent imprisonment of Joseph by the king of North Wales and his future release from captivity by Mordreins (Evalak).
Galahad, Joseph's youngest son, was (according to the French) the ‘ancestor of the famous men who so increased the renown of Britain’. However in this poem, our translator seems to think that Galahad, was the son of Lancelot and Elaine. Now if Lancelot is, as we have mentioned earlier, an elaborated name for Jesus; is Elaine a compound version of Magd’elaine? Is ‘Mag’, or the ancient French root of ‘Mage’ (meaning chief or principal) of European derivative. Apart from being a general root for words that relate to ‘great’, with French and English etymological roots.

The name Mary however, can have so many etymological roots but it does seem to have been a popular appellation at the time of Jesus and could have been so popular due to its meaning of female aspiration to beauty. Originally the name Mary is based on its derivation from the Egyptian mer or mar, to love and Miriam Moses’ sister is the only person in the old Testament with this name and as Moses was named by Pharaoh’s daughter, Miriam would seem to have an Egyptian origin as Aaron her brother also has no etymological roots in Hebrew. Maryam with the Hebrew divine name Yamor Yahweh denotes "one loving Yahweh" or "one beloved by Yahweh". Mariam and Maria are the later forms of the Hebrew miryam. The only reason for mentioning this is the oddness of having the popular name Mary and the English or French appellation of Elaine or Helen as a compound of her name. We shall investigate when we cover the appellation of Tombelaine or Tumbelena (the Tomb of Elaine) as pertaining to The island of Avallon, how it was transferred as relating to Mont-saint-Michel in France.
We are now averted to the possibility that Avallon contains the body of Jesus and that Mary Magdaleine. If she accompanied Joseph with Jesus’ body to England, she would not only know of the location, but would wish to be buried in the same place. Hence this place became known as ‘Mons Tumba’ the mount of the tomb but then through some strange quirks became associated with a different St. Michael shrine that of Mont St. Michel in Normandy. The French tradition has Mary being originally buried in Aix en Provence and her relics to have been later removed to Vézelay. It does not take but a cursory read of the ‘The Little Book of Vézelay about the relics and translation of the Blessed Mary Magdalene’ to realise that the Glastonbury story of Arthur’s discovery and reburial is mirrored in this overly elaborate and contrived account with the same purposes of attracting pilgrims as a motive.

Let us return back to our investigation to the Templars after many digressions. The Crusades were undertaken by European states and also by British King's, ostensibly to recapture the Holy Land and especially Jerusalem, from the non-Christian Mohammedan’s. Each endeavour was being carried out with a clear conscience and religious fervour in the name of Christendom and political gain. The first Crusade took place in 1095 and the ninth Crusade ended in 1272 and in this period of 200 years, the Templar institution was being continually empowered by knightly deeds for Christendom. Having consolidated much power across Europe, the organisation outwardly came to an end on Friday the 13th 1307. As we have witnessed in the construction of the St. Michael churches, the power, wealth and knowledge amassed and wielded by them during this period was still to be seen in full operation, manipulating events on a grand scale.

It appears that The Templars or the brains behind the organisation were responsible for the release of a body of information that perpetuated a theme based largely upon legends of Joseph having transported a relic of Jesus to Britain. With embellishment, this account became anachronistically and inextricably connected with accounts of the early Dumnonian Kings and these accounts were all consolidated by Melkin. A body of evidence showed that Joseph of Arimathea had come with Jesus’s relics to what was still the residue of the kingdom of Belerion, with the royal line of Kings having genetical ties to Judah. This body of evidence in the Book of the Grail included an account similar to the Acts of Pilate and the Gospel of Nicodemus. It seems likely that this Nicodemus account, which existed separately in Britain and probably derived from crossover material which Melkin had written that remained in Britain, was largely responsible for the Joseph tradition in Britain before the advent of the Grail stories. Melkin’s Manuscripts were transcribed incorporating this knowledge and accounts of events up to and including the time of King Arthur in around 550-650 A.D. It would seem then that both Bale and Pitts were wrong about Melkin ‘flourishing before Merlin’, (if Merlin were a contemporary of Arthur), otherwise he would not have been able to write his ‘De Regis Arthurii mensa rotunda’ and the book of the Grail and more importantly, be able to relate the whereabouts of Arthur’s resting place.

As the Saxons and the original Britains intermingled, the Celtic Welsh, (like the of Celts of Dumnonia), overtime began to ascribe Arthur’s deeds to themselves, and the corruption of these accounts were based sympathetically on the common Celtic struggles against the Saxon foreigners and thus gradually they usurped Arthur’s Dumnonian heritage. This was simply achieved by association with the same struggle, eventually leading to Arthur's Welsh backdrop. These ancient associations through common struggle that glorified illustrious Celtic heritage were more proliferated through the Welsh monastic system; monasteries being less prevalent in Dumnonia. William of Malmesbury was responsible for propagating this tradition, while at the same time, paying little attention to and thus diminishing the Joseph and Nicodemus traditions. However these traditions were mainly kept alive in the monastic system at Glastonbury, separate from any link with the Arthurian tradition until it became useful to do so. These Welsh traditions were further established and embellished by Geoffrey of Monmouth. However, the Arthurian material, the original Joseph accounts, inclusive of the Nicodemus traditions, genealogical and occult material in the Book of the Grail, made its way over to France, after the Saxon invasion, and became the source of the Grail romances.

It is this relationship between a royal line established in Southern England and the Davidic line, which will be part of our further investigation. Joseph is central to this relationship, the one who brings the connection of Jesus and the Davidic line, conjoined with the fulfilment of the prophets, which will cause a new spiritual awakening. Joseph will be ultimately responsible for guarding the proofs of Jesus’s suffering by the evidence provided on the Turin Shroud. He is already responsible for the preservation over a two thousand year period of the arcane knowledge, which will agree with the Prophets (once they are generally understood in terms of Biblical time), which, if Melkin had not reiterated, would have been lost. Finally he will be responsible for the awakening of mankind as predicted by Melkin by acting as a Harbinger and a marker of Appointed Time in a Divine Plan that will change the world religions forever.

All four gospel writers confirm that Joseph of Arimathea claimed the body of Jesus after his death and placed him in a tomb owned by Joseph. The accounts of Luke 23:50-56, Matthew 27:57-61, Mark 15:42-47 and John 19:38-42, are bearing witness to his burial. Paul also in 1 Corinthians 15:4 writes that he (Jesus) was buried, but without the contrived eschatology there would have to be a body. Joseph was a wealthy man of standing but during Jesus’ life he became converted and was secretly a disciple of Jesus. Joseph not only witnessed his words and deeds in Jerusalem but had probably spent many hours with his nephew on ocean passages hearing his enlightened views on the prophets. As soon as he heard the news of Jesus' death, he "went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus." Mark15:43. Pilate who was reassured by a centurion that Jesus was dead, allowed Joseph's request before the Sabbath came, to remove and bury Jesus. Joseph immediately purchased fine linen, Mark 15:46 and proceeded to take the body of Jesus down from the cross. “So Joseph bought some linen cloth, took down the body, wrapped it in the linen, and placed it in a tomb cut out of rock. Then he rolled a stone against the entrance of the tomb”. At the tomb, assisted by Nicodemus, Joseph took the body and wrapped it in the fine linen and applied myrrh and aloes these being substances which Nicodemus had brought, according to John 19:39. Myrr is a gum but also an essential oil like cedar. Jesus' body was then conveyed to the tomb that had been prepared for Joseph's own body, a man-made cave hewn from rock.

Apart from the polemically motivated variations of the burial account related in the gospels that were provided to substantiate differing accounts of the gospel writers, we are left with the core theme that Joseph took charge of Jesus’s body. Eventually, through conflicting reports and the disappearance of Jesus’s body; we remain without a corpse and only three ways to explain this dilemma. The following are the three main scenarios which have been postulated to rationalise the dilemma.
1) Jesus’s, body and spirit were resurrected into Heaven leaving behind his grave cloth and the residue of ointments that were applied. At a later date, he appeared spiritually not bodily, but this would of necessity negate the account of doubting Thomas. Jesus then appears to the disciples during his resurrection appearances. This scenario would concur with the Gospel accounts and confirm the Pauline theology and apologist account of the Resurrection and Ascension. It would however negate any suggestion that Joseph brought the body of Jesus to England. It would also prove the Turin Shroud to be a fake and we shall discuss how it was formed shortly.
2) A second scenario is that Jesus was given a sedative in the sponge passed to him while on the cross and appeared to be dead. This would go some way to explain the eye witness account of positive blood pressure upon entry of Longinus’s Lance but would run contrary to evidence found on the Turin Shroud that shows this was a post Mortem wound. He was then laid in a tomb possibly in the hope of resuscitation but Joseph was unable to revive him after the unexpected lancing. Joseph then prepared his body with ointments, and secreted it for transportation to Britain with or without the help of Nicodemus or even the accompaniment of others mentioned by Rabanus.
3) A third scenario posited is that Jesus survived the ordeal of the cross, was revived and nursed back to health, appeared to Thomas and the rest of the disciples as the resurrection accounts attest and then left without the knowledge of Mary Magdalene, his mother and Salome. When his body is unveiled showing evidence that concurs with the markings found on the Shroud, this third scenario will obviously be negated.

These scenarios or a mixture of them have over the years tried to rationalise or answer some of the discrepancies found within the Gospel accounts, however we are now aware that Melkin’s ‘Duo Fassula’ is in fact the Turin Shroud and thus we are certain that Jesus’s body wrapped in this shroud was brought to Britain.
The subtext within the Grail romances, which themselves, as we have discussed, are probably derived from original eye witness accounts in England, are now substantiated by Melkin’s description of the ‘duo fassula’ which he must have witnessed at the burial of Arthur. He also must have left it there not knowing that later it would be removed because, he actually states that the tomb would be untouched at its unveiling. He could not know that the one artefact that he states is in the tomb,the same artefact mentioned by all Gospel writers, would be removed by a Templar.

Regardless of this new revelation, the Grail stories perpetuate a contiguous theme, of an arrival or at least burial of a Jesus relic at an island subsequent to Jesus’s crucifixion, while at the same time having a connection with Joseph of Arimathea resulting in the blood line of Kings and knights related to Arthur.
The Grail sometimes described as an Ark or Box containing oil from the earliest unembellished accounts seems to account for a preserved corpse arriving in Britain. Although we are told the spices were Aloe and Myrr this could have been an attempt at early resuscitation or acted as an interim preservative concoction enabling Joseph to embark on his journey to obtain the amount of embalming oil to fill what was to be called the Grail ark. The Cedar oil would have more probably been manufactured in Lebanon and the Egyptian confusion as the location of Sarras being derived from the Prophets understanding of a Spiritual ‘coming out of Egypt’. This occult meaning of Egypt is witnessed in the passage in Revelation 11:8 ‘And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified’. This is in fact a reference to the two witnesses. (Jesus being one, the other being St. Michael), which speaks directly of spiritual Egypt which, as we will get to, is part of the understanding pertaining to the ‘Gradatim’ or degrees to spiritual enlightenment that is bound up in ‘Biblical Time’. So let us not dwell on the Egyptian connection to Sarras for the moment and let’s look at the evidence for the Turin Shroud being synonymous with the ‘duo fassula’ that Melkin says was in the same tomb as Joseph.

Since Jesus's body has never been retrieved and the fundamental creed of Christian faith is substantiated by the fact that his body has never been recovered, it would not be expedient of Melkin to report before the ‘appointed time’, that the body of Jesus existed or that the evidence of his crucifiction existed on an imprinted grave cloth. Not wishing to be accused of heresy, but safe in the Gnostic knowledge he had obtained (supposedly by angel, but more likely by a visit to the island to bury Arthur)……… Melkin chose to obscure the fact that Jesus’s body was buried in Britain, but made sure that we knew the cloth that provided the proof of who he was, rested in the Grave with them both. So we have the one man who knew of the cloth’s existence providing a clue in his prophecy and also leaving behind evidence of its existence in the book of the Grail.

During the body’s voyage from Jerusalem with Joseph to the Isle of Avalon it would have been covered with a cloth, the same cloth which was reported in the Gospels, while the body lay in the Grail ark or box. This highlights the polemic specifically centred on the cloth from the gospels and the different accounts surrounding it. For the wounds to be so clearly defined in blood and the outline on the Turin Shroud to be formed, it surely must show that the cloth spoken of by the gospel writers never remained in the tomb in Jerusalem but remained wrapped around the abused and suffered corpse of Jesus for a very long time while being submerged in oil.

Controversy has certainly surrounded the Shroud due to the carbon dating system used to test its age. This piece of cloth, known as the Shroud of Turin, is one of the most important Christian relics in the world. It depicts a full-scale imprint of the body of a crucified man evidencing within the image the scars and wounds that are recorded in the accounts of Jesus’ death. The importance of the burial cloth should not be underestimated since the cloth is mentioned several times in the gospels. Apart from Melkin’s testimony and that of the gospel writers, not only did a burial cloth exist, but it plays an important role as each of the gospels describes the body of Jesus being wrapped in this linen cloth after having been recovered by Joseph from the cross. The shroud as seen today depicts all the right features that concur with the crucifixion account of Jesus down to the minutest details. In fact the surest way to know that the Shroud is in fact the burial cloth of Jesus and was formed over a long period of time in the oil of the Grail Ark is to look at the 3-d imaging from many experts. All of them show quite plainly by the cloth having been partly suspended in oil, the ripple effect in the 3-d imaging on the visage of Jesus.

The Shroud of Turin was first heard of in 1357 when it was displayed in a church in Lirey, France. It was allegedly discovered in the vaults of a property belonging to Geoffrey de Charny a Templar who died at the Battle of Poitiers in 1356. He and his wife Jeanne de Vergy are supposedly the first recorded owners of the Turin Shroud. It is often cause for confusion that a Geoffroi De Charney was burned at the stake with Jack de Molay the final Grand Master of the Templars in 1314. This later Geoffroi De Charny was said to have participated in a failed crusade under Humbert II of Viennois in the late 1340s and is known to have visited the British isles twice around 1350. In 1453 a Margaret de Charney supposedly the Templars granddaughter, deeded the Shroud to the House of Savoy and in 1578 the shroud was transferred to Turin.

The Turin Shroud measures 4.4 by 1.1 m. It bears the faint front and back, feet to head and head to feet imprint of a naked man. It could not fit the description of a doubled swaddling cloth described by Melkin more accurately. The image depicts the nail wounds of the crucifixion of Jesus as described in the New Testament accounts. The shroud was stored in a silver chest in a chapel in Chambery, France and in 1532 a fire raged through the chapel. Part of the chest melted and droplets of molten silver burned through the shroud. Luckily most of the damage did not interfere with the outline of the figure, but left a symmetric pattern due to the way it was folded in the chest. Later the burn holes were patched.

The image on the shroud is much clearer in black-and-white negative than in its natural sepia color. The negative image was first seen in 1898, on the reverse photographic plate of an amateur photographer, named Secondo Pia, who was permitted to photograph it while it was on show in the Turin Cathedral. When Pia developed his negative, he expected to see an image on the negative that was more faint or ghost-like in appearance than the original positive image of the photographed sepia coloured cloth, the image becoming positive only when the light values are reversed in a photographic negative. The light areas observed normally appeared as dark, and the dark as light and the negative image of the Shroud appeared as a well-defined picture of a crucified man laid to rest.
Since the actual image on the Shroud was ghostly to begin with and hard to make out, Pia was initially shocked at the result in his developing pan when the image became crystal clear. What he had done in effect was to create a positive image that originally had been formulated in negative. An incredible artistic feat for a forger but then one must ask, ”why fabricate something that is barely recognisable and none can know of its artistic craft or beauty until the advent of Photography”? Many experts still think that the shroud is an elaborate hoax and that position is simply based upon a logical set of blinkers. For most, the lateral evidence of being formed in a liquid is precluded by association with the shrouds gospel associations with the tomb in Jerusalem. Even for the sceptical examiner bent upon proving the shroud a hoax, there is no precedent of such an artwork being formed in a liquid.

In 1978 a detailed examination was carried out by a team of American scientists (S.T.U.R.P). They found no evidence of forgery and were baffled, but could not give a definitive answer as to how the image was formed or even any propositions. Many ensuing scientific enquiries have followed all with inconclusive results as to the genuineness of the shroud as pertaining directly to Jesus. The Shroud accurately represents an abundance of three-dimensional information. When modern image analysis began in 1974, the image of the shroud was found to contain an impressive amount of accurate three-dimensional spatial information.

At the advent of Pia’s photograph, no longer was there a ghost like image and lack of definition between light and dark areas but instead, Pia witnessed a picture that was so lifelike that it could not have been a painting, but more akin to an actual photograph. The image on the Shroud originally created or formed in negative, led researchers to think that the shroud was composed as if one would normally construct an artistic image, except in reverse. With the evidence of the Grail stories and the fact that we now know Jesus’s body was submerged in oil, it is plain to see how residue from the Cedar oil itself left an overall residue on the cloth as it evaporated and is responsible for its sepia quality. This in conjunction with build up from anaerobic micro-organisms impregnate the cloth internally forming a denser build up where the body was touching the cloth and restricting free movement. This is precisely how the negative image was formed. The Turin Shroud has been examined with visible and ultraviolet spectrometry, infrared spectrometry, x-ray fluorescence spectrometry, thermography, pyrolysis-mass-spectrometry, laser-¬microprobe Raman analyses, and micro-chemical testing, but interestingly enough not one scientist has posited that the image was formed by particle movement in liquid. There has never been evidence of pigments (paint, dye or stains) as some have claimed, nor has there been evidence of an artist's intent found anywhere on the Shroud of Turin.
With an ordinary optical microscope, it can be seen that most of the thread fibres have extraneous deposits that cover their surface. These coatings may be composed of micro-organisms (bacteria and fungi) and non-cellular heterogeneous materials. It would seem that the colouring that formed the image is mostly organic in nature and was deposited as exo-polymers by the evaporated cedar oil and by bacteria that invaded the textile fibres over time by being in solution for a minimum of six hundred years and probably some of these fibres were later affected by Fungi as it was removed from the body and put aside in the tomb.

The reason for giving this date when the ‘doubled fasciola’ might have been removed from Jesus’ body, is due to Melkin’s description of the Shroud. Unless it was unwrapped from Jesus’s body, he would not know that there was an outline beneath the body and this resinous coating must have had time to dry before smudging occurred. It would seem that Melkin could have been responsible for removing it and leaving it folded in the vault still covered in oil as it steadily evaporated. This would explain the slight imprint of the face on the rear side of the shroud as it would have been folded as it was when covering the body. The first fold evident in the middle and as the resinous oil evaporated, the imprint from the microbial detritus opposite, left a faint impression. This imprint would of course be more pronounced if the first fold that doubled the cloth was eventually placed at the bottom of the rest of the folded shroud.

This would have meant that this area would have remained soaked longer being underneath, as over the years the oil gradually evaporated and dried this bottom layer was soaked and weighted giving rise to the faint facial imprint. There is also reason for Melkin removing the shroud as it was noted that the nose and knee area show signs of dirt and this might have been caused by the gradual evaporation from the Grail ark over the six centuries while dust from the tin vault gradually soiled the exposed protruding areas. Alternatively though, these two areas could have protruded at times above the surface of the oil where there may have been floating debris initially.

The Shroud has been expertly reviewed by many scientists and since 1988 have produced carbon 14 results that conclude the shroud to be from the fourteenth century, but they have not taken into account the microbial residue that pervades much of the textile structure and how it got there. It is these bacterial infestations that form part of the superficial coatings and it is the density of deposit that actually define the image.
It is not only scientists but archaeologists and scholars, who are naturally sceptical about any relic purporting to be older than they can establish without an historical footprint. In medieval Europe, fake relics abounded, but none that can defy modern science and withstand such scrutiny as the shroud has undergone. Scientists have been struggling with how the image on the Shroud was formed, and how old the linen cloth is, for the past forty years. It would appear that their answers depend more on the prejudices of the scientists than they do on the scientific data itself, if the mode of manufacture is factored into the resulting conclusions.
The official statement from the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP) at the end of their extensive analysis says: "We can conclude for now that the Shroud image is that of a real human form of a scourged, crucified man. It is not the product of an artist. The bloodstains are composed of haemoglobin and also give a positive test for serum albumin. The image is an ongoing mystery and until further chemical studies are made, perhaps by this group of scientists, or perhaps by some scientists in the future, the problem remains unsolved."
Well those futuristic scientists stated that the cloth is medieval because they could not isolate a fibril of the shroud without impregnation of microbial carbon deposits that gives an erroneous C14 date for the cloth.

The Turin Shroud is not the product of an artist and exhibits no apparent brush strokes, and it exhibits no evidence of layering which shows that the image was formed as part of one process. In recent tests on samples, they found micro-colonial black Fungi and Bacteria. Some of these formed filamentous structures that surrounded the fibres, or pervaded their internal structure. The individual fibres of the cloth are surrounded by a bio plastic coating and this bio plastic coating will have been formed from ‘terpenes’ that constitute the resinous cedar oil.
It is significant to note that the biopolymer coating can in certain samples make up the most substantial portion of the fibril being tested and if a liquid medium had been considered this would have provided a good starting point from which to conduct scientific analysis. The pervasiveness of a now evaporated fine oil that has formed into a resinous film over and through the fibrils is the cause for the Shrouds opaque colour. The oils capacity when as a liquid, to transfer micro-bacterial material to the core of the flax sample would assuredly alter any Carbon 14 data, even with the most rigorous cleaning process. The cleaning process used by radiocarbon labs was duplicated by one lot of experts even increasing the strength of the regular cleaning solution. This process had absolutely no effect on the bio-polymeric coating but instead dissolved some of the flax cellulose which goes to show the resilience of this resinous residue and how the cloth itself cannot be accurately dated by this method. This resulted in less C14 being obtained from the shroud itself and even more from the contaminating bio-plastic varnish, thus not really measuring the age of the cloth. The particles of residual bacteria that were suspended in the solution has been the cause of the darkened colouration that forms the outline image as it settled in place and became part of the bio-plastic varnish as it encrusted with differing quantities of residue that forms the shading of the image.

The anaerobic bacteria deposits in the coating obtained some of their sustenance from carbon dioxide and they would have introduced additional carbon 14 to the cloth giving an erroneous date for the fibrils. Science needs to prove conclusively the C.14 date of the cloth alone without contamination to prove the Shroud is 2000 years old. After all unless one can isolate a pure fibril one is not going to get a accurate Carbon 14 result for that fibril. As all fibrils are contaminated with the plastic residue from the oil which also have locked in microbial residue one can dismiss the C. 14 results as indeterminate for the cloths date.
The main stumbling block to any scientific analysis is a preconception and since the Shroud has no history as a religious relic prior to 1357AD this might have a bearing on the results that have been produced so far. How the tests are conducted or how the results might be viewed are always more conclusive given a viable explanation. The results of Shroud testing would of course be more accurate if a credible theory were put forward to which the results could be married. As we now know the provenance of the shroud and the fact that it was submerged in oil in a dark sarcophagus for at least 600 years, and possibly rested in there until December the 25th 1307 before it saw daylight; we can be sure the next analysis will be more circumspect.

If one was still to believe that the Shroud had not come from the vault on Burgh Island and the negative image of Jesus had not been formed over time in a solution; it would take an incredibly adept artist to create the shroud with the amount of scrutiny that has been afforded to it. Apart from the fact that the Shroud has no historical footprint before 1350, the other main reason put forward for it being a fake is that some critics say that one cannot drape a three-dimensional object with a piece of cloth and get the same proportions. This is fairly obvious but the shroud does not present us with a wrapped image, but the image is shaded to give three dimensional representation. The hair each side of the face is exactly as one would expect of a cloth gently suspended in oil over the top of the body. It gives the correct representation on the reverse as representive of a back and legs where parts of the body do not touch the cloth. The main contention is that the 7-8” as measured from ear to ear across the face becoming 11-12” as measured on cloth wrapped around the face from ear to ear. Apart from the hair of which the volume was of an unknown quantity, the three dimensional quality is given by shading and the argument that the shroud (if it were genuine), could only have been formed as a wrapped cloth is erroneous. This argument assumes it was touching all parts of the body which we know it was not, as it was formed in a fluid while being suspended.

The clever way that the shroud is said to have been formed by chemical reaction by a ‘camera obscura’ would leave chemical residue which is not detected. This is quite a ridiculous theory as the image is made up from the coloration of particles that have been encrusted in dried cedar oil residue and this encapsulated the blood particles beneath this outer layer of the fibril. A difficult result to match from a ‘camera obscura’ method! The fact that Leonardo da Vinci is implicated as the fraudster is also quite preposterous as he was not born when it was first shown and not even he would think about incorporating pollen grains from the dead sea area and including the imprint of flowers. What needs to be understood about Leonardo is he detested religion and those that peddled it but he understood Jesus’ divinity and this is exemplified in his paintings, but he would not deign to forge such a sacred object. The forger theory still persists based upon the dates of the C.14 results, but it is this date parameter of 1260-1390 given by science that has forced this conclusion.

A forger would have to have knowledge to paint the bloodstains before applying the image material because at the microscopic level, the cedar residue and anaerobic micro-bacterial residue that it leaves, cover the blood stains in the fibres. The obvious reason for this is that the blood soaked into the shroud by capillary action before the microbial deposit and encrustation of the resin occurred. Research has shown that there is no underlying image present under the blood spots and the blood shows under UV light a serum-separation which is visible as a halo. This is comprised of a serum retraction ring of albumin around the solid parts of the blood and this is typical for post-mortem blood. This halo is not visible with the naked eye and this reaction was not known until recently, so a forger would have had to use a dead body.

A hoaxer would have to have an amazing talent to give the three dimensional effect and also have the ability to think in negative. The Shroud was obviously formed in the Grail Ark by the laying down of detritus entrapped in the fibres of the shroud as it was suspended in Cedar oil. The Shrouds suspension as it settled over the face can clearly be seen on a ‘V.P 8 Analizer’ computer image. Not only would our clever artist be painting this image with some unknown micro-bacterial medium using an unknown technique, he would have to stand back 20 or 30 feet away to check his work in order to construct the ghost like image that is barely perceptible in the positive on the ivory coloured cloth. Not only would he have to overcome working at a distance if working in the conventional artistic approach, but he would have to match anatomically both sides exactly. Those who contest that the body is not anatomically correct should understand the body of Jesus underwent the most horrendous abuse that would have caused swelling. Who except Melkin had ever stated that Jesus’ shroud was doubled over in one piece, because to fabricate this match is difficult without a body, but the forger would have to know of Melkin’s description. This basically would need a crucified victim to carry out the plot and would seem a bit excessive for a one off hoax and if this were the intention, why construct it in barely perceptible negative and on a ‘doubled fasciola’, if no-one else knew of this description?

Photograph by G. Enrie, 1933
Figure 48 Showing on the left the Sepia coloured shroud impregnated with Cedar oil residue, mixed with bacterial detritus forming a Negative image and on the right the photographic image, the positive of the naturally formed negative.

Not only would this supposed artistic genius have to have forensic knowledge of blood flow patterns to match blood flow from the wrists at 65° from vertical, which concurs with the crucifixion position of the arms, but we would have to accept that our artistic forger is a pathologist and took into account the lesser secondary smaller blood flow angle that would have been created as Jesus tried to pull himself up to alleviate his breathing difficulty.
Someone who is able to reconstruct the position of the arms in such a way as to place them where they would have to account for gravity and direction of the blood flow that are seen on the shroud, would have to have a genuine crucified victim. Our forger would also have to show the blood flows with genuine group AB blood confirmed by the presence of porphyrins, bile pigments and serum albumin. This is obviously a ludicrous assumption as an artistic endeavour, as the artist would have had to deny forensic science the ability to uncover his method, which is why no artistic method has been found. Realistically if Melkin is the only person who has mentioned this doubled cloth and no-one has ever understood his meaning of ‘Duo fassula’……… would it not be simpler to do a one sided image if one was just aiming at artistic intent? Basically, it would be pointless to match an unknown description of a doubled shroud and therefore this adds credibility to the Shroud as genuine. The Shroud is quite simply not a fake, but the real burial cloth of Jesus and not some medieval custom Crucifixion for the sake of a hoax. How could a hoaxer know to match Melkin’s description of something that actually existed and was recorded in an obscure British puzzle.
For the sceptic, the Shroud will remain a fake until science can confirm our proposed method of manufacture and then undoubtedly the concurring carbon 14 results will follow. The proof that it is the genuine death shroud of Jesus will only come when its previously unknown history is established at the unveiling of the tomb.

How could any artist have the foresight to duplicate abrasion marks on the knee and compression marks on the shoulders to coincide with the carrying of the cross to Cavalry. Did he really go into such ‘minutae’ to overcome 21stcentury scrutiny, to consider duping any investigator into thinking that the man portrayed had carried a heavy weight following the scourging? From the image on the Shroud, we can see signs of beating about the face, swelling under the eye and clumps of his beard having been ripped from Jesus’ face, which shows incredible attention to detail for any medieval forger.

In all medieval representations of Jesus on the cross, the nails go through the hands, yet in the Shroud they go through the wrists which concurs with modern archaeological findings of crucified victims from that area, during that Roman period. Even if the fraudulent artist did not have his own crucified victim, he would even have to possess knowledge that Jesus’s thumbs needed to rotate inwards, because the nail had passed through the Median nerve and because of this there is what seems to be a thumb shadow on the shroud that has led some investigators to think that the image must convey some x-ray qualities. This just shows that there was no detritus in solution where the thumb under the palm was resting. There is too much detail for the supposed artist to consider without being uncovered……… if this were in any way a fraudulent endeavour. The chance of an artist not only creating but matching an anatomically correct outline of a man on a shroud with no uncovered artistic method is too improbable under modern scientific scrutiny. The fact that this piece of cloth is said to have existed by Melkin in the Dark ages along with the body of that same man whose image is displayed on it and was witnessed to be in a tomb that no-one knew existed, seems more than a little coincidental.

The many scientists will concur that this is the shroud of Jesus when the body that formed the image is unveiled and matches anatomically. The fact that no investigator has proposed that it was formed in a liquid seems astounding for the most investigated article on earth. How else could one get the fibrils covered with the encrusted residue to give the overall sepia colouration.

There has been considerable speculation that the image of the Shroud was somehow painted because of traces of Iron oxide used in many artistic pigments, but there seems to be no correlation between concentrations of iron oxide particles and the varying densities of the image and would more likely be explained by the oxidisation of the spearhead or crucifixion nails that may have been enclosed within the Grail Ark. What really negated the pigment theory was that during scientific chemical analysis, it was discovered that unlike artist’s pigment which contains iron oxide often mixed with nickel, cobalt and manganese, the iron oxide examined on the shroud was nearly pure and widespread over the samples as opposed to being more concentrated in the shaded areas that comprise the image. This tends to indicate it was dispersed while in solution from metallic objects within the Grail Ark.

Again if this were a fake, the supposed artist seems to have had amazing palynological knowledge to match plant spores and microscopic pollen, but to incorporate not only flowers into the shroud that are only indigenous to the region of the Dead Sea, seems too full of foresight to stay ahead of scientific analysis. The flowers that would have been placed into the Grail Ark by those closest to Jesus, are those that have left their imprint on the shroud. This also seems to be a bold move by the artistic hoaxer straying from the orthodox script of the Gospel accounts. Rather, the existence of the flower images add credibility to the story that Jesus was removed from Jerusalem in an oil filled coffin and it was those close to him that added the flowers.

Zygophyllum dumosum Boiss, one identified plant imprint on the shroud grows only in Israel, Jordan, and Sinai; its appearance helps to definitively limit the shroud’s place of origin as these flowers would have been placed in the Grail ark before the oil and before the Ark was sealed before starting its journey westward. Pollen grains from Gundelia tournefortii also found on the Shroud, particularly found in the arid areas of Syria, Palestine and Jordan seem conclusively to evidence the shrouds area of origin. This locale was surely not known for its scientifically verifiable fabrication of religious relics.
Faint imprints of indigenous flowers were found around the head area on the cloth and were placed over Jesus’ body by Mary Magdalene and others that loved him and had witnessed his cruel murder. The shroud is a physical record of the most heinous travesty of Justice and those that loved him were not going to witness any further abuse of this innocent man and so removed the body from Jerusalem.
The flowers remained within the oil to eventually leave their imprint and microscopic pollen grains found embedded in the cloth were from plants endemic to regions around the Dead Sea. Many of the air-born pollen grains would have been deposited before the oil was added to the Ark. Is it unlikely that a forger would know that this could all be scientifically discovered 700 years after the supposed hoax?The shroud contains pollen grains from 58 species of plants, 17 indigenous to Europe where the artefact has been for 7 centuries since Geoffrey De Charney removed the Shroud from the vault. The majority are indigenous plants to the Holy land some exclusively, to the area of the Dead Sea, including, Artemisia herba-alba, Onosma syriacum and Nyoscyamus aureus but when pollen is found from the plants indigenous to Devon that we can see in figure 40,37 and 34 that blossom around June when the Grail ark was probably delivered, then the sceptic will have his proof of the provenance of the Shroud.
Our artistic genius painted an anatomically and photographically precise human image in photographic negative and all of this, centuries before the science of photography was developed and just to complicate the issue decided to portray both sides anatomically perfect. He then would have had to use micro bacterial deposits with the correct quantities to create the shading in the appropriate areas in a medium combined with a poly-saccharide caramel to express himself.
The Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus and with all findings from modern three dimensional computer analyses, biochemistry, medicine, forensic pathology, anatomy and botany, a potential fabricator had to know enough of the effects of crucifixion on the body to avoid detection by all the efforts of modern science. One can scarcely imagine in the early 1300’s an artist who would contemplate waiting until the advent of photography before the full effect of his artistic brilliance would be discovered as this would be modesty in the extreme.
The artistic fabricator also took chances supposedly painting Jesus as a nude. Medieval paintings never depict a nude Jesus as it was accounted sacrilegious and even today, the image of a totally naked Christ would be unacceptable to the very market the supposed fraud is aiming at. On the other hand, a nude body of Jesus conforms to genuine Roman crucifixions as archaeological evidence has shown.

Our Genius fraudster would have to know that Gundelia tournefortii blooms in Israel from February to May around Jerusalem to coincide with these being present at Easter time when the plants were placed on the Shroud just before Jesus’ Grail Ark was transported toward the port of embarkation in Tyre or Sidon. Easter, when Jesus is recorded to have been murdered is a moveable feast day and the date of Easter is the first Sunday after the full moon i.e. the Paschal Full Moon, following the northern hemisphere's vernal equinox. This is thought to be on March 21 even though the equinox occurs, astronomically on March 20 in most years and the "Full Moon" is not necessarily the astronomically correct date. So the date of Easter differs a whole cycle between March 22 and April 25. Therefore, the brilliance of our fictitious artist would need to be acquainted with the blooming dates for the 30 species he has included to incorporate into the Shroud, in total contradiction to the gospel writers account, in which Myrr was said to have been applied to Jesus.

Any medieval artist would have placed the nail marks on the hands if he were fabricating an image of the crucified Jesus just to concur with popular portrayal. This placement of the nail in the wrist depicted on the Shroud goes against medieval artistic convention, as the nails were depicted by every other artist as piercing the hands. Instead the Shroud represents the actual practical position where the nails must be inserted in order for a body to hang on a cross without ripping through the fingers. One wrist bears a large round wound from the piercing spike, the other wrist wound being covered by the top hand but we can assume that the lower one is identical. There is a sign of a wound consistent with an upward gouge in the side penetrating into the thoracic cavity.

This Medieval forger’s ability to follow the Gospel account is unrelenting as he also supposedly imitates small punctures around the forehead and scalp from the crown of thorns and scores of linear wounds from a Roman ‘flagrum’ on the torso and legs. Also there is the evidence on the Shroud of swelling around the face from severe beatings and large puncture wounds in the feet as if pierced by a single large spike. What a sacrifice to knowingly endure such atrocities for the sake of mankind! Jesus knew the profound meaning of the Paschal lamb that would ensure the Jews ‘Coming out of Egypt’.
Evidently, it is more fantastic to think that the Shroud could be a fake than to accept that it is the genuine grave cloth from Jesus’s body. If one does come to this conclusion, it is interesting to note however, how accurately the Gospel accounts of events endured at the passion of Jesus, coincide with wounds that have left their imprint on the Shroud. One can really see how brutal the treatment of Jesus was and all because he had understood the Law and the purport of the prophets more perfectly than the religious leaders of that time. One can barely contemplate St. Paul pursuing Jesus’ followers and being a part of the same atrocities, all in the name of religion. What a miraculous conversion he had, but the sad outcome of which was another religion due to contrived eschatology. Formalized religion must cease, but the prophets must be understood in the correct context before the Abrahamic religions no longer find offensive the true purport of the Divine plan. In the future, will witnesses be allowed to be treated with such brutality, as the priest class of religious teachers condoned such violence to Jesus? –The chief priests, self-professed leaders from all the dead religions, which prevent their adherent’s entrance to Heaven and from perceiving the truth behind the divine plan, which is plainly set forth by the prophets.
The Turin shroud is the ‘duo fassula’ from a genuine burial casket containing cedar oil which contained many flowers, mostly leaving their impression in the vicinity of the Jesus’s head. These must have left their imprint as they rested on the shroud as they were gently suspended in oil over the centuries. It seems probable that Brownian motion might have had an effect within the oil in distributing the organic detritus that makes up the shading of the image. Where the shroud made contact with the skin or hair of Jesus there was more deposit over the long time span as the detritus was restricted.

The image on the Shroud varies inversely with the shroud-to-body-distance as it floated in solution i.e. the image density or ‘pixilation’ corresponds to a mathematical gradient directly relative to distance between the body and the cloth, which highlights that the Shroud covered an actual body during the time of image formation. The darker the image in the original, the closer this part of the shroud was to the body, the darkest parts actually touching. The lighter the image the further away these parts of the body were from the Shroud and thus less chance of entrapment and build up. This gives the impression that the Shroud is in a way pixelated by shading with a relationship of darkness the closer it is to the body. So we can see also, that the case is strong for micro-bacterial anaerobic activity that ranged free, suspended in solution and thus depositing itself more heavily where the cloth was inhibited by contact and received a larger residue build up by a combination of two forces within the solution, Brownian motion and microbial movement. However the image could have been caused by brownian motion alone. There may have been as some attest either the nails from the cross or the spearhead used to lance Jesus that were deposited also in the Grail Ark.

Did the tin lining of the Grail ark cause a reaction to oxidise the spear that was deposited in the Coffin. When dissimilar metals are in contact with each other through an electrolyte, galvanic action occurs, resulting in the deterioration of the metal with the lower galvanic number. Since tin has a higher galvanic number or nobility than Iron...... did the oil act as an electrolytic medium and is this the cause of the iron oxide deposits found on the shroud?
All the iron deposits found on the Shroud, whether from iron oxide particles or from blood, proved to be 99 percent chemically pure, with no discernable Manganese, Nickel, or Cobalt, so we can rule out paint artistry. The earth pigment, Red Ochre or Venetian red, from either medieval or older sources would have been contaminated with manganese, nickel or cobalt if the image had been created with paint.

The proposed time period of six hundred years for the formulation of the image is only a considered guess based upon Melkin’s assertion of the shroud being folded amongst other factors such as the faint facial imprint on the rear, but the reference to folding(pleta), could be just a re-iteration or clearer definition of the ‘doubled’. If we have fully understood that Melkin’s meaning was that it had been removed and the shroud was set aside from the body and folded before he exited the tomb..... this would of course allow the drying and caramelising of the oil before being removed by the Templars.
It would appear then that microscopic residue from the anaerobic activity worked in conjunction with Brownian motion. This process in effect deposited more material in the spaces unimpeded by the skin and hair of Jesus, thus rendering a near perfect negative image.
This became fainter but fixed once removed from the box during the solidification of the varnish like residue as the oil slowly evaporated. The fact that the Shroud was covered in oil that impregnated every fibre, certainly explains the cloths imprint surviving through the centuries, as under normal circumstances the flax would have rotted over a two thousand year period.
Despite the seemingly definitive tests supposedly proving the shroud to be a fraud (purely on the basis of date)……… the status of the Shroud of Turin is as unclear as ever before, because the date arrived at by c14 tests preclude that the shroud is a fraud. It is not so much that the results are wrong however, but given the information about the preceding 1300 years until it was displayed, allowances could be made for the Carbon 14 measurement and new tests devised especially when the body that formed the image is uncovered.

The Shroud cloth is woven in three-to-oneherringbone twill, composed of flax fibrils, which in its day was a quality piece of cloth and could have been woven to the length specifically for the purpose it was used for. The cloth appears to be of a pre 12th Century weave and the manufacture indicates a Middle East origin. The two outline views front and back are aligned along the mid-plane of the body and are oriented in opposite directions, consistent with a doubled all in one grave cloth and the image formation as we have proposed. The front and back views of the head nearly meet at the middle of the cloth and evidence the cloth was once draped over the body of Jesus as seen below.

Figure 48a Showing the photographed image of Jesus on the Turin Shroud, which also highlights the burn marks.

Since the Shroud is made of materials which were once living plants, radiocarbon dating should be accurate, but of all the theories used to explain the excess carbon 14 in this ancient relic, none take into account living micro-organisms, such as anaerobic bacteria which were present on the shroud for at least six hundred years during its undisturbed spell in the solution of Cedar oil. As these micro-organisms lived and multiplied leaving behind their detritus, they would have incorporated new carbon into themselves, and into their organic wastes which would assuredly alter the accuracy of any Carbon 14 results. One could posit that during seaborne transportation, agitation in part was responsible for the distribution of the image, but this would not give the erroneous C14 results we are witnessing left by their residue. The unlikelihood of anaerobic Fungi also existing in solution would seem to indicate that these filaments pervaded the cloth after it was taken out of solution and left folded within the tomb.

The outermost fibres of the cloth are coated with a layer of starch fractions and various saccharides from the resin oil. Widely spread throughout the cloth, the coating has turned into a caramel-like substance, thus forming the medium and fixing agent for the image’s shading particles while acting as a ‘fixant’ for the enduring image. Where there is no encapsulated darkening that forms the images, there is an otherwise clear starch and polysaccharide coating on most of the shroud’s fibres and the varnish like film is precisely what one would expect from evaporated and dried resinous cedar oil. Spectral and chemical analysis reveal that the ‘chromophores’ of the Shroud of Turin's images are complex, conjugated carbon bonds which do support the assertion that they have been deposited by a mixture of evaporated resinous oil mixed with micro-bacterial detritus. The final confirmation that the formation of the image was indeed constituted in solution is shown by computer analysis that picks up the wave of the shroud as it was suspended in the liquid.

Before 1988, the Shroud had already undergone several forensic tests made by many experts in the field, each finding, supported the belief that this cloth was approximately 2000 years old, and that it originated from Israel. It seems that science has been steered by the fact that the Shroud not having a documented history appears suspect. A sacred relic pertaining to a such a specific event in global history appearing 1300 years after it was first recorded has tainted its credibility purely for the lack of its known provenance. We should look to Melkin for the confirmation that he saw this same object circa 600AD.
Habet enim secum Ioseph in sarcophago duo fassula alba & argentea, cruore prophete Jhesu & sudore perimpleta: Joseph has with him in the sarcophagus a doubled white swaddling cloth covered with the blood and sweat of the prophet Jesus that was folded around him.

It is hard to get more precise than this description by Melkin especially since he is the man who gives account of how these events unfolded. This by itself confirms that the ‘duo fassula’ is not the Grail of popular conception but now focuses our attention on the other things that the Grail has had associated with it. The original Graal was commensurate with a ‘processional’in which it appeared while the Grail questor was at meat, which was indicative of a three stage progression over time. Grades or Degrees as the name suggests are stages of spiritual progression and indicate a level of attainment. It is only by careful understanding of the purport of the prophets that one can realise the correlation of what is meant by Melkin’s elucidation in the Grail book.

Lastly a quest, journey, or both, is the stamp or essence of the Grail and on an individual basis is the life saga of all mortals, but for mankind as a whole, the Grail is the work of God that can be witnessed within the parameters of ‘Biblical Time’which is elevating consciousness through the divine spark or Holy Spirit. All of these attributes of the Grail have been incorporated in the Romances but their substance has been somewhat misconstrued. The Grail Quest has become the spiritual search of the soul for divine union, set in a context of Knightly pursuits of chastity, virtue, and prayer, but as we now know the Grail itself, in the person of Jesus, has been transposed through misunderstanding to a physical object to be searched for.

So we now can remove ourselves from a quest to find an objective tangible Grail, to the discovery of a more valuable possession that exists or comes to fruition out of Time and to which the real purport of the Grail alludes and which is born witness to by the Prophets. This is in effect a concept of potential to be understood and this is the essence of the Grail, something that can never be attained by conscious will but by the Spirit of God. Something that cannot be found, but only attained through heightened consciousness and the understanding that this consciousness is being elevated within the confines of a divine plan, over a pre-determined time span that we shall call ‘Biblical Time’.
When the Shroud was definitively removed from Joseph’s tomb is unclear but if our assertion that the ‘duo fassula’ is the shroud, why would Melkin state that he expected it to be found in what was to be an ‘undisturbed’grave, if he is responsible for taking it to France along with the Book of the Grail.

The only reason for postulating such a proposition is because there is a possible instance where we hear of the shroud prior to its first accepted appearance but the evidence is not strong. From all the evidence produced here, Melkin appears to have removed the Shroud and folded it leaving it to slowly dry in the sepulchre chamber. By his own account he believed the chamber would not be opened until the appointed time in‘Biblical Time’ and did not know the Templars were going to deposit their treasure in the tomb and remove the Shroud. To have mentioned it in his prophecy indicates that he knew what impact the shroud would have on the world, acting as a proof of Jesus’ sacrifice and suffering, but he never contemplated it would be separated from the Grail Ark which together, established it as the genuine shroud referred to in the Gospels. It is very probable that when Melkin saw the Shroud the image (the positive of a negative formation) was much clearer before it dried.

Now we know that the Grail writers have allegorised a body of knowledge in their own imaginative ways, it could also shed light on the strange reference to Josephes and other’s crossing the channel on a shirt (which is a strange concept) and should be understood as another example of a reference to a mistranslation or the sense being misconstrued and in this example the shroud or cloth from the original becomes a shirt in the Romance. This actually epitomises the random allegorization that was perpetrated by the Romancers. This would be no surprise, as we have already witnessed greater mutations from the original form in other aspects of the Romances. But this particular piece of information could indicate that the Grail Ark was in fact transported up through France and then the fifty (said to accompany Joseph), then went to the Island of Sarras, to the final resting place of the Graal.

At the inquisition of the the Knights Templar, Arnaut Sabbatier, a young Frenchman who joined the Templar order in 1287, testified that as part of his initiation he was taken to “a secret place to which only the brothers of the Temple had access”. There he was shown “a long linen cloth on which was impressed the figure of a man” and he was then instructed to venerate the image by kissing its feet three times. Had the Templar illuminate, who possessed the manuscripts recording early British history, also had in their possession the Shroud removed from Jesus’s body at the death of King Arthur at his burial in Avalon? If so this puts an earlier date than 1307 for the opening of the tomb and the extraction of the Shroud from it, but we will cover this shortly. The Knights Templar had been accused of worshipping idols, in particular a “bearded figure” which some reported as a bearded head but was this object they had secretly venerated, the Shroud which of course depicts a bearded Jesus.

The old tin vault first being used as a tomb seems to have occurred at the burial of Jesus and subsequently by those who buried Joseph. It is also related that some or all of the Kings from this early royal line up to Arthur are also buried there. ‘Galahad dies at Sarras, says Hardyng, but sends Percival with his heart to Arthur, praying the king to bury the heart beside king Evalak and duke Seraphe, who were buried beside Joseph ( in the chapel of Our Lady at Glastonbury)’. The last bracketed phrase is an afterthought being an affirmation and interpolation of an earlier record. Finally, Melkin must have witnessed Arthur’s burial to have related that the ‘duo fassula’ was buried in the same place as Joseph. So it is only Sabbatier and the The Pray Codex (The Hungarian Pray Manuscript) a collection of medieval manuscripts, that offer any prior knowledge of the shroud before the 1350’s, so it is not clear when or if it were De Charney who removed it.

The Pray Codex is an old handwritten Hungarian text dating to between 1192-1195 showing a similar picture of repose to Jesus’ imprinted on the Turin shroud, but no further evidence or likeness except an exaggerated artistic impression of the twill pattern which could be considered striking but vastly exaggerated and any likeness completely coincidental.

Figure 48b The Pray Codex, showing the similarity of repose of the body of Jesus as being similar to the image formed on the Shroud.

This of course could be just coincidental and does not in any way prove a connection with the shroud and even if it did it might just indicate that the Templars deposited the Ark of the covenant in the Tomb before 1195AD as we hear only rumours of the Ark’s removal and nothing in any Templar documentation. The Pray codex is only given such credence as representative of the shroud based upon three similarities. The repose of the body is the first, the burn marks or ‘poker holes’ in the real shroud that appear to be in an ‘L’ shape and the pattern of four holes represented here in an upside down ‘L’, and lastly the supposed representation of the ‘Herringbone Twill’ cloth that comprises the Shroud. It would seem that the poker holes are just decoration by the artist, the same feature found on what looks to be the belt of the Angel and its wing, but also found above the chest of the female administering saint. The top scene is quite simply Joseph and Nicodemus preparing the body and the second is the three women witnessing the white cloth left in the tomb, both as representative of Gospel accounts. There is no mention in the codex of the image representing the shroud and the supposed pattern of the weave of the cloth has been deemed a more important feature by the artist than representing the image of Jesus on the cloth which is slightly redundant if the picture were genuinely portraying a knowledge of the Shroud.

The fact that Jesus is having lotions applied like the Gospel account seems to indicate that coincidentally the way the body is laid out is similar to the shroud but the real intent is to show the body receiving attention after having been removed from the cross as the gospel accounts convey.
One would think that if one were in some way trying to recreate the image portrayed on the shroud as something the artist had witnessed, it is a most striking feature that the beard is not included. Would it not strike anyone coming across the shroud that Jesus wore a beard rather than leave out the feature. In the image of the Shroud of Turin, the right palm is over the base of the left hand, while in the Pray codex, the arms intersect above the wrists. If one were trying to depict the 14 feet long Shroud, significantly larger than the small shroud depicted here in the codex, one would at least portray that an image existed on the Shroud. It seems that the main reason for considering the similarities of the Pray Codex was to confute the dating provided by the C14 results of 1260–1390 AD and establish the Shroud existed at an earlier date. The similarities are only due to the fact that they convey differing portrayals of an historic event about the same person through different mediums.

The last time the Tomb seems to have been opened is on December 25th 1307, seven years before the death of De Charney or fifty years before the Shroud was first displayed in 1357. It seems unlikely that the Shroud was in continental Europe until just prior to its first showing, and why would Melkin say the cloth is with Joseph if he had removed it to France.
It is surely not by coincidence, that the same Templar society that built the St. Michael churches had knowledge of the Grail, physical proof of the Turin Shroud and knowledge of the whereabouts of the Island of Avalon. This surely would be the perfect place in which to deposit their treasure.

It is surely not by coincidence, that the same Templar society that built the St. Michael churches had knowledge of the Grail, physical proof of theTurin Shroud and knowledge of the whereabouts of the Island of Avalon. This surely would be the perfect place in which to deposit their treasure.
Finding an empty tomb in Jerusalem by itself does not prove a resurrection. However the fact that the tomb in which Joseph had put Jesus was empty, is essential to the resurrection’s truthfulness for fundamentalists. If anybody would have been able to produce Jesus’ body, any resurrection claims would be voided and Christianity would not be founded on the tenets it possesses today. So here we are presented with two options; Jesus survived the ordeal of the cross and carried out his appearances which would explain Thomas seeing the two holes in Jesus’s hands and Luke having Jesus say "behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself. Handle me and see, for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have," Or, the resurrection accounts are inaccurate……..and there was no resurrection. If there was an appearance, it must have been a spiritual appearance rather than Luke or Thomas’s witness.

This form of appearance is well attested by St. Paul’s conversion from persecutor to advocator and is evidence of Jesus enduring as the Spiritual leader of Judah’s heritage as attested to by the Prophets.
If one is not a fundamentalist then Jesus’s resurrection is just as important, yet it must be understood in a way that the prophets speak of it and in the sense that the Grail Book recounts as Jesus being part of the ‘Divine Plan’. Jesus was resurrected that all men that believe in him might also be resurrected, this is a spiritual resurrection not a bodily one because his earthly body did not undergo an Elijah like flight into Heaven. If it had, how could the shroud have been created?

It is Jesus’s bodily resurrection that provides validation of his incarnation for the primitive and fundamental Christian mind and for St. Paul. The entire Christian faith rests upon the centrality of the resurrection of Jesus and the hope for a life after death as St. Paul confirms here: "If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep”. St. Paul, who can probably be accounted one of the greatest men who ever lived, was assuredly converted to a believer in Jesus as the Messiah, spoken of by the Prophets. Apart from Jesus’ sacrifice, Christianity’s evolvement and perpetuation is largely due to St.Paul’s effort. Having no other substance upon which to base his resurrection accounts except those given by the Gospel writers, his eschatology becomes somewhat rationalized on the assumption that the Body of Jesus ascended to heaven.

The resurrection occurs in this life on earth as stated by Jesus - in the spiritual sense while in the body and this conception is attested to throughout the Prophets. This spiritual resurrection would not occur had it not been for the sacrifice of Jesus and this resurrection is part of the individual’s life. This resurrection applies to the Judaic heritage which extenuates to all the offspring of Abraham, iconic as the first man to have Faith. Otherwise why would there be the reassurance of the second death having no power and is faith all that man can establish. Is not Faith the precursor to the certain knowledge of God? Faith is only called for until proof can be established by a higher consciousness- ‘credo ut intelligam’. Paul spoke of how the state of consciousness existed in his ‘Times’ from Hebrews 11:1
Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen, Or more correctly as St. Paul saw it,
Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. B

ut due to Man’s consciousness existing and being formulated in Time, we now find that resurrection is no longer confined to Faith but now becomes a proof.
How could Jesus be crucified in Egypt? Egypt in this sense is identified as one of the degrees of spiritual attainment spoken of by the Grail book and throughout the prophets, as spiritual attainment mirrors Biblical history. If one does not achieve belief that Jesus lived and died as part of a Divine plan and was the Saviour who came to help every individual, then there is no further Spiritual progression, hence the first death. If Jesus had not come, those who fell asleep would not be reawakened during their lifetime in the flesh as this is the essence of his coming, that life (a spiritually awakened soul) may continue after the death of the flesh; for had he not come, those who died in the Law since his coming, would not be resurrected.

Those who do believe but fall away, undergo the ‘troublous times’ spoken of by the Prophets which is a period after the spiritual fall of Jerusalem and a seven year period of spiritual purification. If they are purified (by complying to the Law), they then accomplish the equivalent of the return from Captivity in Babylon. This can only become clear with a good grasp of the biblical prophets as being applicable spiritually today and an understanding of Biblical Time which we shall cover shortly. The current theologogical interpretation of the resurrection at the time of Jesus’ death was based upon prophetical metaphorical language. So we can understand the necessity of the creation of a resurrection scenario to marry with misunderstood prophetical prognostications such as Isaiah 26:19 But your dead will live; their bodies will rise. You who dwell in the dust, wake up and shout for joy. Your dew is like the dew of the morning; the earth will give birth to her dead.And Ezekiel 37:5 ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. 6 I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am the Lord.’

Theological issues aside; the scenario mentioned above that Jesus appeared in the spirit to the apostles and Gospel writers recorded sightings of an Angelic or Spiritual form of Jesus is but one explanation. More probable is that the Gospel writers polemicized his appearance to add credibility to his resurrection……… trying to marry together what the prophets had predicted, with what Jesus had also told his disciples, and their current view of what should happen to fulfill those expectations. This would of course, have been made simpler if the body of Jesus had disappeared up to heaven and was not seen again.

When Joseph removed Jesus body from Jerusalem, only the closest of those who travelled with him knew the truth while the resurrection account offered by the Gospel writers filled the void. This rationalization was essentially understood by the compilers of the ‘Q’ source and the Gospel writers, then subsequently elaborated upon as they tried to add detail as if having come from eye witness account.
Thanks to Melkin’s appellation of ‘Abbadare’as a pseudonym for Jesus, no-one has suspected that the corpse of Jesus existed in Britain except the illuminate from the Templars, who it would seem, learned of the tomb’s whereabouts from the Grail book. This would of course mean that Joseph had removed the body of Jesus as we have posited and as the Grail book maintains………to remain in a casket of oil which now lies in the Island of Avalon with Joseph.
The strange thing about the Gospels is their ability to be so factual and to record faithfully some events, yet at other times provide completely garbled and contradictory accounts to rationalize the void left by a Messiah and no body to revere. This is also witnessed on the relationship of the Magdalene and marriage issue along with the missing husband of the Virgin Mary.

It is not the object of this enquiry to cause any offence to the faithful but the Virgin birth of the prophets is a reality and the virgin birth of Jesus was not. Hence we have total obfuscation about Joseph, Jesus’ father because you can’t square a virgin Birth based upon Isaiah 7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel…… with a physical Father. Essentially the Messiah had to be the product of a Virgin otherwise for the fundamental understanding Jesus could not be the Messiah if conceived naturally. Yet interestingly enough his geneaology is traced through Joseph which is pointless without input. The virgin birth of a son can only be understood in Spiritual terms and what the language of the Prophets refers to, is the birth of the spirit within man. The prophets words can be understood to apply to spiritual growth.

Not wishing to cause further contention about Joseph, it is worth mentioning that there is no record of a place called Arimathea that existed, except as it is noted in the Bible. The mention of it as a place was extrapolated from what Luke (23: 51)…… saying it was "a city of Judea". Nowhere is the place of Arimathea mentioned except in connection with Joseph and it is this point which may be pertinent if Arimathea was originally a misunderstanding of ‘Ara Mithrea’ Ara (altar or temple) Mithrea (grotto or cave where Mithras was worshipped) which shows that Joseph himself could have been British. Many thought Apollo and Mithras (both sun Gods) were synonymous and as we saw, Paracelsus thought Avebury was the Sun Gods temple in Britain. The background to Mithraism in Britain is well known to historians and mithraea, (small basilical buildings resembling caves) were where ceremonies were performed. Was Joseph referred to as coming from the temple of Mithras in Britain or of that religion. Just a thought, as Joseph the name of Jesus’ father who no-one dare comment on in the gospels, (as to what happened to him), has the same name as an uncle.

Joseph as an uncle (if he really was his father) is far easier to square with a virgin birth, but he can still be included in the gospel accounts carrying out the acts of a loving family member without spoiling the eschatology. This too might be the explanation of why rumours still exist that Jesus spent time in Britain(prior to his burial there) as certainly he had picked up a different understanding of the prophets as what was understood by the Pharisees in Jerusalem.

Not unlike the Grail stories in many respects, (but more so like the stories about Arthur that emanated from Glastonbury), the Gospels are unable to obscure the truth behind the polemicism and rationalizations. One such garbled and contradictory account is the burial of Jesus in Jerusalem where none of the Gospel writers concur, but elaborate on ‘Q’. Is the cloth, much like the ‘Wattled’ church, overstated in the contradictory accounts of the Gospel writers. The two salient facts that Jesus was buried by Joseph in a tomb he owned and with a white cloth, seem to indicate a story built upon slight detail and then dovetailed to match the perceived eschatology. Could this burial information and the fact that it was a hewed out tomb in which no other person had been laid, be mixed with the rumoured echo that Jesus was to buried in a tomb hewed out.

Was this tomb spoken of hewed out by Dumnonian miners and is situated elsewhere, but still owned by Joseph? Is the real story that, some close to Jesus, saw Jesus in the Shroud, heard he was to be buried in a hewed out tomb owned by Joseph and then he was never seen again? Someone close to Jesus will have placed the flowers in the Grail Ark and this most probably, was Mary Magdalene. She would not want his body to undergoe any further abuse and might even be responsible in part for the rumour starting that Jesus was in Joseph’s tomb. It could be that this information never actually became public knowledge until later because most of those who witnessed Jesus in the shroud and were close to him went to England. If so then these small details would certainly give the compilers of ‘Q’ and the Gospel writers, cause to stretch, embellish and bring to life, the only information that was passed onto them, i.e. the matter of fact information concerning a white cloth and a hewed out burial chamber belonging to Joseph.

The various differing accounts, guards outside the tomb etc, can only be seen as an attempt to explain the unexplainable with fraudulently compiled eye witness accounts that all contradict each other, used individually as a devise by each Gospel writer to substantiate his version of events.
Whether Jesus appeared after the crucifixion or not, has no relevance to his sanctity as he was spoken of by the prophets and he fulfilled the very purpose for which he had come which he himself bears witness to. This was to give life or resurrect the Israelites in the spiritual sense…… ‘come out of Egypt’ as had been done historically (but spiritually emblematic). To resurrect those who had become spiritually dead by their ignoring or denial of compliance to the law. If Jesus had not come in that capacity, his voice and message would not have changed the world. There is absolutely no question that Jesus is the Messiah, but it was unnecessary to rationalize the gospel accounts to fit with the current understanding of what Prophets predicted……… but rather to understand the context of the Prophets predictions.

The tombs discovery will in effect negate the fundamentalism of the bodily resurrection for Christians and realign the Abrahamic religions firstly to a new and cohesive understanding of the Prophets and latterly on a global scale by inclusion of the other faith religions. Ultimately there is only one God and this will be understood by the record left behind by the Prophets, that foretell of spiritual elevation as the work of God especially when that record is perceived as a fundamental truth and becomes understood as having transpired as a Divine Plan set in pre-cognitive Time.

In effect Jesus’ mission was to bring all Israelites (an inclusive term) spiritually ‘out of Egypt’which is equitable with an individual’s first knowledge of God; the Law having been not so much imperfect, but primarily a precursor, in bringing mankind to enlightenment.
This was because of no failing in the Law, but down to the hardness of Man’s heart as part of the process toward Gnosis. Jesus was to be the spiritual redeemer of mankind and he was to come forth at a appointed time. One could contradict this way of understanding and say that the law was not received until after coming out of Egypt. However the answer lies in the foreshadowing that takes place in Biblical Time and will be understood once the concept of Biblical Time is commonly accepted. This foreshadowing, as we shall eventually see, is part of pre-cognition in a divine plan that has been set in Time so that Man can comprehend God’s work; the goal of which is aimed at ‘Gradually’ elevating mankind to full consciousness.

This is the proof of which St. Paul thought we could only know by Faith but two thousand years ago man’s level of consciousness was not ready to accept or indeed understand such truths. Thus the practice of religion has perpetuated the knowledge of God until Man became eligible through elevated consciousness to accept that his spiritual nature has been nurtured from a Divine Spark implanted in Adam 6000 years ago.
How may man reach Gnosis or self-awareness when the only orientation he has is time, yet he has no concept of it except measurement. Jesus was to challenge the world view of ‘ignorance’ with the two basic precepts that encapsulated the law and the Prophets; ‘treat others as you would hope to be treated by them and have knowledge and love of God’. Up until around 36 AD, no one had so succinctly defined the point and the lot of mankind.

When Jerusalem was delivered from the Mohammedan’s initially, the bulk of the Crusaders returned back to Europe. During the reign of Baldwin the second patriarch of Jerusalem in 1118, Hugues de Payens and another eight knights vowed to defend Jerusalem as a Christian kingdom and to protect the routes into Jerusalem taken by pilgrims. Baldwin was grateful of their avowed assistance and gave the Knights a place in his Palace adjoining the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount. From then on they were known as the ‘Pauvres Chevaliers du Temple’ and poor they were in those days, relying on alms charitably handed out by pilgrims on the way to Jerusalem. In its period of growth and evolution as an organised body, the Templar’s power and renown was inextricably connected to the church and European imperialism. Hugues de Payens journeyed to the West to curry favour with the Church and to obtain recruits from the sons of the landed aristocracy of Europe.

The Templar dress at this stage was not uniform until after the Council of Troy in 1128 where they adopted the Red Cross of the Cistercian order of St. Benedict which just happened to be the same emblem as upon Evalak’s shield. With the Pope's blessing of the Templar order, recruits were found from the sons of nobility throughout Europe pooling much of Europe's wealth into one organisation. In the future these extensive financial resources would fund a large number of architectural projects across Europe and the Holy Land.
The Templar organisation became the guardian of arcane knowledge, having direct links to the great cathedral builders of the age and before that, drawing knowledge from the monastic tradition, who had built the Abbeys since 500 AD. Eventually the Templars knowledge provided for an offshoot that became the Freemasons, incorporating knowledge from the pyramid builders, and the builders of Solomon's Temple and the architects of the Ley system. From the 1600’s they incorporated Templar symbols and rituals evidencing the intermingling and consolidation of various organisations as part of the York Rite. The Knights Templar grew very rapidly across Europe within its 200 year fruition, empowered by religious fervour with the dreams of young nobility pursuing knightly endeavours, gaining renown for martial prowess.
The Pope added to their meteoric rise in stature by ensuring them protection throughout Europe and exempting them from all taxes and jurisdiction both secular and episcopal. One wonders what it was that the Templars had, which qualified them for a Papal ‘Carte-Blanche’, if it were not a piece of information that would crush the church and the basis upon which it was founded.

The Templars were a force to be reckoned with and the red cross they wore was a symbol of martyrdom and assured any young knight who fought for the organisation a place in heaven, creating a cult of fearlessness on the battlefield. The knights of the Templar order were forbidden to surrender unless the Templar standard had fallen. The Templars wealth and the overall education of their adherent’s, accompanied by their fervour proved them to be elitist and allowed for top-quality armour, excellent horses and exemplary training, making them the largest non-national force in Europe to be reckoned with. The order grew in power, as every member who joined willingly handed over all their wealth and goods, the adherents avowing chastity, piety and obedience to the order and from one or more of the orders subjects, information concerning the temple mount and the British Tomb, fell into the hands of the ‘Illuminati’ that formed the core of the order.

The founder Hugues de Payens circa 1118, was officially their leader as Grand Master and the last Grand Master was Jacques de Molay who was made to confess under torture to heresy and then later retracted and died defiant facing Notre Dame Cathedral. As the ‘Chinon Parchment’ was found in the Vatican archives in 2001, having been filed in the wrong place in the 17th century; it revealed records of the trial of the Templars and related that Pope Clement absolved the Templars of all heresies in 1308 before finally disbanding the Order in 1312. Why, one wonders, after such a witch-hunt and no convictions were the King of France and the Pope so intent on ridding themselves of the knights Templar order?

In the 200 years of Templar power domination, their wealth which was kept in its temples in Londonand Paris, especially in the latter years in which the organisation existed, was lusted after by the church and the King of France. Kings and princes and private persons banked their wealth with the Templar order, while in Paris, even the royal treasure was kept in the Temple. The Order of Hospitallers, a less material organisation, established much the same time as the Templars, started to assert their authority across Europe by interfering with the Templars’ material business empire. In the end, both organisations’ eventual defeated by the Crusader nemesis Saladin in Jerusalem, impaired much of their power. Eventually, after the rounding up and disbanding of the Templars in Europe and at the death of the Grand Master Jack de Molay, the remaining non-compliant Templars around Europe were arrested and tried under the Papal investigation or put to death for their compliance and admissions to heresy. None were convicted and most who remained alive then joined other military orders such as the Knights Hospitaller, or were pensioned off.

By Papal decree, the evident residue of the Templars wealth was transferred to the Order of Hospitallers, thus concluding the final disbanding of the Templar order by the Papal See, mainly instigated and steered by the King of France. The Vatican today admits that the final persecution of the Knights Templar was unjustified. It also admits that there was nothing inherently wrong with the Order or its rule. The Vatican standpoint today in retrospect and self-absolution is that, Pope Clement was pressurised into commissioning his witch-hunt, by the Templar’s increasing worldliness and banking profligacy and succumbed to the huge influential power wielded by King Philip IV over the Papal See.

No accurate record exists as to the Templar membership, but it is estimated that at the Order's peak there were between 15 and 20 thousand Templars. Many of these having pooled the wealth of their estates into which they had been born, which created what probably could be termed the world's first multinational conglomerate and probably, had it not been disbanded, would have led to an eventual Republic of Europe.
The rivalry between the military orders had compounded their downfall and the Pope’s solution was to consolidate them all. This consolidation had been proposed twice by Pope Nicholas IV trying to avoid the crisis that eventually ensued. At the Council of Vienne in 1312, the Pope issued a papal bull, which officially dissolved the Order, and merged it with the knights Hospitaller after the king’s hope of finding a wealth of gold along with the relics recovered from the temple of Solomon had not been realised.

However, the main blame for the disbandment of the Templar order should remain with King Philip IV, who was deeply in debt to the Templars, and set up the inquisitors, taking the position that he had heard certain unsubstantiated revelations concerning their heresy and acts of sodomy. He contrived to send secret orders throughout France to arrest all the Templars on the same day, which was designated as the 13 October, 1307. King Philip made it appear that the orders had come from the Vatican, for breaches in religious piety and the Templars rumoured devotion to non-Christian idols, amounting to heresy. Of course, with the severity of the torture which existed at that time many of those captured admitted to things that were certainly not true of the Order. The long talks about amalgamation between the two orders of The Knights Templar and the Knights Hospitaller in effect had taken place at the dissolution of the Templars but both the King and the Pope through their own devious imaginations had missed their prize.

The King did not manage to steal their rumoured treasure and the Pope did not stop the residue of the Templars leaving behind clues to posterity, so that they might be led to the only object that could remove power from the church. The King and the Pope may have assumed control vicariously through the Knights Hospitaller and gained control over much of the business empire, inheriting a banking empire which held letters of credit from the nobility, but the true essence that empowered the Templar order had escaped them.

The Knights Templar had a strong presence in La Rochelle from before the time of Eleanor of Aquitaine, who exempted them from duties. La Rochelle was a Templar base on the Atlantic Ocean and from there, carried out their business with Britain. It is not even certain that the Templars owned their own fleet or alternatively hired ships from traders as they needed them, but there is a legend that some Templars used the port of La Rochelle to escape from France with the fleet of 18 ships which had brought Jacques de Molay from Cyprus to La Rochelle much earlier in the year of 1307. This rumour seems to have come from the port records that record Jack de Molays return from Cyprus but in the intervening months it is likely that most of the ships had been employed elsewhere. Eighteen ship loads of treasure transported across France from Paris to La Rochelle under duress seems unlikely. Three ships possibly, but eighteen would risk losing too much and that volume of treasure is surely exaggerated, but where there is rumour of treasure, there is usually a grain of truth. The ships reportedly left laden with treasure just before the issue of the warrant for the arrest of the Order in October 1307.

On hearing of King Philip's plan to arrest all Templars on Friday October the 13th, most of the Templar wealth amassed from European estates and conquests and the choice valuables that were stored in the Temple in Paris, had been assembled into three ships that lay on the West coast of France in la Rochelle. On October 12th 1307 the ships left La Rochelle and were never seen again.